


You're All I Want (Worth a Thousand Words Remix)

by pearl_o



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Photographs, Post-Beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1597562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik returns to the mansion to collect his belongings, and finds a memento.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're All I Want (Worth a Thousand Words Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [You're All I Want (My Fantasy)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000018) by [helens78](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78). 
  * In response to a prompt by [helens78](https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78) in the [remixmadness2014](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2014) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> Major fandoms include **X-Men: First Class** and **due South** , though I have written in many others!
> 
> No safe stories. (except cowritten works and WIPs, which I don't think are remixable anyway?) All remixes have the word 'Remix' in the title!

"Give me a half hour," Erik says when Azazel drops him off at the gates. 

Erik could have had him take him anywhere on the grounds, right into the bedroom Erik had used, for that matter. He had chosen not to do so not for any logical reason, but merely because of the ghost of a feeling that it seemed wrong to do so, to let someone else invade what had been their sanctuary, even - no, _especially_ \- when it was so easy to do so.

Moira knows where it is, of course, which means the government knows. If that was ever acceptable it's certainly not now, and something will have to be done about it-

But that's not Erik's problem, he reminds himself. Not anymore. Charles saw to that.

Azazel looks vaguely doubtful, but he doesn't question Erik, disappearing in a puff of red smoke. It makes sense; Schmidt certainly wouldn't have tolerated any hint of second-guessing from any of his subordinates. Erik has been counting on that, running on it for the last few hours. With Schmidt dead, there's a vacuum of power, and all Erik has to do to be the loudest voice, the most confident. When you've already followed for so long, you have a need to continue to follow. Never let them see that he doesn't know exactly what he's doing, or that he might not have it all planned out, or it will fall apart in an instant.

It won't work forever, but it's enough for now.

Erik makes his way across the lawn and into the mansion, moving quickly. There's a certain feeling of unreality to it, walking through the house. It feels lived-in, as if the residents have merely stepped out for a moment for a trip to the store, and might return at any moment. It has only been a matter of weeks since Erik stepped foot into it for the first time, and yet it came closer to feeling like a home than any place has in larger than he can remember.

Chances are he'll never step into it again, after today.

He pauses for a moment before Mystique's room - she had refused his offer to take her with, which Erik both thinks foolish and rather respects her for. Better, perhaps, to get it over with all at once and never look back, but at the same time, there's something to be said for being prepared with what you need for the future.

Everything in his room is the same as he left it, barely a day ago now. The bed is still unmade. 

(Charles had asked him to sleep in his room, that night, and Erik had refused. Not with the early morning ahead of them, not with everything in the world riding on what the next day would bring. It would be a lie to say Erik would have done differently if he'd known it would be his last chance. There had always been every possibility that he might die; _that_ would have been a sacrifice Erik was perfectly willing to make, if it meant he had succeeded in killing Shaw.)

He doesn't own very much. He's never been in one place long enough to collect belongings, _things_. It's the work of minutes to collect his papers and remaining cash from his hiding places, and take out the small suitcase from the closet and grab a few changes of clothes.

Erik's fairly certain there's nothing else he needs, but he goes through all the drawers once more, simply to be thorough. 

There's a book in the nightstand drawer - a pulp mystery, the kind of you get for a dime in any drugstore. It is the sort of brainless trash that Erik had always enjoyed reading before sleep, distracting him from the worse images that always seemed to come in the dark.

Tucked inside the pages is a photo strip. Erik holds it in his hand for a long time, staring down at it, paralyzed in indecision.

The memory is so clear in some ways, and yet already faded in others. Where had they been? Iowa, perhaps, or Kansas? Somewhere flat, and hot. They had driven past cornfields that day, Erik seems to remember, for hours upon hours. Charles had teased him in the car, sipping from an icy soda pop with a long straw and giving Erik knowing looks whenever he wasn't distracted by discussions about the others of their kind they were going to find and recruit. When they had stopped, and Charles had dragged Erik away somewhere semi-private, Erik had suspected ulterior motives. But no, Charles had sincerely wanted pictures. Pictures, of the two of them together. A reminder.

It seems like a lifetime ago, already. Erik can barely recognize himself in the picture. He's never seen that expression on his own face before. He looks... happy. Disgustingly infatuated. Like he would have followed Charles anywhere, like a lap dog satisfied with any crumbs that might follow from his master's fingers.

Erik hates himself, now, for being so foolish. But can he truly blame himself? Wouldn't anyone, looking at these pictures, have believed that Charles felt the same way? And the pictures don't even do half justice to Charles's eyes, the way they could look at you like you were the only person in the world and they believed in you utterly. To say nothing of the feeling of Charles's mind against one's own, giddy and affectionate beyond measure.

If Erik had a lighter on him, or even a match, he would burn the strip to ashes. But he doesn't have either. He doesn't know if it's a sentimental weakness or self-flagellation, but he can't leave the pictures behind, either; they're tucked next to his skin when he meets Azazel again by the gates, and he keeps them with him, one way or another, from place to place as he works and plots and plans - right up until the day he's arrested and the government takes them away with the rest of his belongings to some secret cabinet or drawer, never to be seen again.

It's many more years later before he sees the other half of the photo strip again, safe in Charles's wallet for all that time. Erik feels like an old man then, gazing down at the image of the two of them, so young and in love, captured in a kiss that's somehow both fleeting and forever. Back when things were simple; before it all became so complicated.

"It was never simple," Charles says, picking up the thought from him, voiced laced with a bittersweet love that Erik no longer doubts, "not for the two of us."

For once, Erik has to grant him the point.


End file.
